Olzai Carnival

From Carnival Sunday to Ash Wednesday and Pentolaccia Sunday, the streets of the town are animated by the three masks characteristic of the Olza carnival: sos Intintos, sos Murronarzos and sos Maimones. The carnival is characterized by the spontaneous participation of the population, the masks dance in the square and enter the houses, accompanied by “su portedore”, the only uncovered character who guarantees for other people made unrecognizable by masks.
On the evening of Ash Wednesday, the puppet character Zuanne Martis Sero is burned in the square because he was born on Tuesday night. In ancient times, it was a man who was caught during the night, tied to a ladder and taken from house to house, where he was forced to drink large quantities of wine, now replaced by a puppet that, after being subjected to a real trial, is burned on Wednesday evening.

The masks
Sos Intintos: characteristic of Ash Wednesday, they are dressed in 'zippone and antalera', their faces smeared with black are disguised as widows mourning the death of the carnival.
Sos Murronarzos: they wear ribace clothes and cowbells; they use to smear their faces with burnt cork, originally they covered it with authentic pig or wild boar snouts, now replaced by wooden masks. They always parade in pairs. The mask, which disappeared at the beginning of the twentieth century, perhaps due to its excessively violent behavior, has been recovered in recent years.
Sos Maimones: half men and half puppets with feminine features, they have four arms, four legs and two heads. They are particularly cheerful and explicit masks that personify human fertility.

History
Like most Sardinian carnivals, the Olzai carnival also has its origins in the oldest agro-pastoral traditions. His masks and rituals hand down to the present day the atavistic struggle of man with nature for the productivity of the fields and for the survival of animals and their families. The carnival rites reproduce the fears of the remote past and the anxiety to ward off evil, in particular famine.

Update

5/2/2024 - 13:34